The guests, who chose Croatia for this year's study journey, said they wanted to open topics which would advance Croatian-Belgian cooperation.
Radin told them that the rights and status of about 20 national minorities in Croatia were regulated by a constitutional law and two laws on education and languages of the national minorities. He said the constitutional law guaranteed them five to eight seats in parliament and that currently they had eight members of parliament.
Also present at the meeting was the chairman of the Council for National Minorities, Aleksandar Tolnauer, who said that despite difficulties, Croatia in 2002 adopted the constitutional law on national minorities with standards of protection which were among the highest in Europe.
Asked by Happart about the possible regionalisation of Croatia, Radin said the Constitution envisaged decentralisation of political power which made national minorities more important, a process he was hopeful would continue.
Happart said the Wallonian parliament had full legislative authority in fields of regional jurisdiction and that Wallonia was entitled to have direct international relations in the economy, investment, foreign trade, and cultural and scientific cooperation, which makes this region an almost unique example in Europe.
The Belgian federation is comprised of three national communities -- Flemish, French, German -- and three autonomous regions -- Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels.